Target. Diversify. Cultivate.

If there is one thing I hate, it's asking the ether to donate.

"But," you say, "I have 542,371 followers on Twitter! If everyone donated £1.00 to my cause I would have £542,371.00!"

And it would work, if you were an uber-celebrity or you had a major amount of media behind you.

Chances are you don't have close personal relationships with 542,371 people. Chances are even further that if you got a hold of 542,371 email addresses and sent them an impassioned plea for them you would be seen as... wait for it... wait for it... a SPAMMER.

So chunk the idea that volume = instant goal. What you need is a targeted plan that covers a variety of ideas and cultivates your donors.

And by cultivation I mean "builds a relationship." You're not selling wrenches, you're promoting a cause that you have an emotional attachment to and are actively doing something for.

Let's play pretend!

You've sat down like a good girl/boy and made out your list of potential donors. It looks like this:
1. The affluent group (affluent in my world can give £50 or more).
2. Your work colleagues who you see almost every day.
3. Your friends who you gather with on Fridays.
4. Your friends from overseas.
5. Your Facebook/Twitter friends.

To throw marketing/sales speak - These are your target audiences. You need to sit down and think of ways in which to reach them. Ideas can be as such:

1. Affluent: Wine tasting at your home/Asking in person/Taking a group to dinner.
2. Work colleagues: Bake sale/Raffle/Asking in person
3. Friends: Spare change/Pasta party/Give up a beer for your cause
4. Overseas Friends: Email/Blog/Video/Call everyone over a set period
5. Facebook/Twitter: Donation Posts/Videos/Blogs/Fan Group

Once you pick your ideas and set them into motion there is a futher, final step: CULTIVATION. Reality is not everyone is going to pick up on your cause and throw money at you. You need to build relationships and seek engagement. Sometimes people can only provide moral support, and that is just fine, so long as you treat every single person you approach with respect and kindness. They are doing something for you, so always show appreciation - if it's £1.00 up to £1,000.00. Trust me, it makes good personal and good business sense.

So remember: Target. Diversify. Cultivate. Sticking to one thing (or hoping for one big one) won't get you to your goal. Sticking to your cause will.

4 miles.

Today I ran this many: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3458286

The whole time I was much more thirsty than normal. But it was good to be out, I didn't have to wear all my winter gear, and I didn't feel like dying the moment I got home.

I hope this is my only set back as I move forward. Really do.

A little ahead, a little behind.

There is a sore throat thing going around work. So I'm sitting here mildly medicated and a bit irritated as - of course - this interferes with my marathon training.

I was lamenting at elevensies the passing of the half marathon as my hard race. I was wistful, almost teary-eyed, at the thought of running ONLY 13.1 miles. Oh the joy of getting my first Duck from Disney all those years ago....

But then...it hit me. I'm ahead a bit on my training! So with this knee needing a bit of RNR and my throat, I've decided that this weekend I celebrate the halvsies once again. Yes, the joyful, relaxing halvsie. Best to put my mental mindset on something that is now a light and frothy, a refreshing little multi-mile joggy.

Sometimes it is good to be a little ahead so you can be a little behind. It helps at the times like this that happen in every persons race journey where marshmellow clouds float through your head because it is mildly stuffy. Yep, I think I'll hold slightly on that 17-miler.

Please sponsor. Thank you. Fluffels.

Goal raising and my FARTHEST DISTANCE EVER!

Okay, so I raised my goal.

After being asked to share with VMGiving I realized I needed to. You don't just spend a good chunk of the morning breaking down achieving doable fundraising goals and think, "Yep, and here I am, so super proud of my over-achievement!" Virgin was founded by a guy who doesn't believe in limits, so I had to raise mine.

P.S. - I really like the Virgin Money Giving site. If you are charity raising your life is much, much easier. Back in the days of dinosaurs and green screen mobiles a person spent a huge chunk of time tending to their donors and swearing they wouldn't pass out credit card information.

Anyways.

14.65 miles. That is what is on the register for today. I believe I ran 14.10, in a (now defunct?) Nike+ Half Marathon. The goal of this half, so I was told, was to take your Nike+ out and in 24 hours (which is lovely) run 13.1 miles or more. Seeing as when this happened I was in my final months of living in Houston I decided to run a huge area near my home. I found out that it was hot, carrying enough water/gel without people at rest stops is hard, people build directly into public sidewalks (Hooray for running through shrubs!) , and much of the damage from Hurricane Ike was still around. But I finished and I turned in my time and I never got my tshirt or keychain as I was promised.

Ever.

So I have that run on memory, but nothing further, and sadly, nothing better.

Until now, that is. Glorious Oxford with its glorious sidewalks and trails and bike paths! (And, of course, stupid Oxford with its far to easy to access outdoor running!)

In short, there isn't an excuse.

I did well on my last long run, and even though it wasn't tasty, the ROCTANE will be with me again. I really didn't hurt very much after wards with that in play, so out it will trot again. (Along with nummy chocolate and mint chocolate GU!)

So if you see me in these next few hours (I'll be wearing my jersey!) give me a shout or jump on and donate to my cause.

See you on the other side o' the bloggy.

The Pyramid

So I was asked by VMGiving (follow them) that if I had any fundraising tips I should pass them on.

Get the opportunity for an extra bit of promotion for the National Autistic Society and help others? No problem.

I actually spent three years in grassroots fundraising for local candidates in Houston, Texas. (If you think charity fundraising is hard try politics!) Every year we would go through a training day of understanding how to break apart a fundraising goal and achieve it.

All fundraising starts with a goal. The goal for me is to run a marathon, and in doing so raise £1,250.00 for the National Autistic Society. £1,250.00 is a lot of money to me, almost an entire months salary. I've also got a time limit - my marathon is March 21st. So I've got seven weeks. Plus I've got to train.

Does this sound familiar?

Wanting to do two things very badly - run a marathon AND bring attention and funds to a personal cause - can cause a mental breakdown on one or both sides of your goal. This is why you should, right now, get a sheet of paper out and a pencil. Draw this:

This is your fundraising pyramid. It is designed for you to see your goal not as a large and daunting challenge, but as a means to an end.

Time to think.

• Who are the kind of people you can ask for support? Friends? Family? Colleagues? Wealthy socialite pals? Who are they? List them out on the paper. If you run out of room go to another sheet, but list them out. These people are what we call a Fundraising Pool. They are the people who will determine the most and least amount of donations you can feasibly achieve.

• Find the person you think can afford the most to donate, and the persons (plural!) you think can afford the least to donate. Be realistic and put yourselves in their shoes. During our training we would often role play to try to understand what it would be like to be them. That way you can set your range.

For example:
I have a business friend who has known about my running for years. He's really supportive and has run a marathon himself. I feel confident I can ask him to donate £100.00 to my cause. On the flip side I have a ton of friends getting their college degrees. They don't have lots of money but I bet if I ask, they'll give up a pint or two for my cause. I could collect £5.00 from them, no problem.

So draw in your pyramid:
The top is now the highest goal you wish to get in donations, the bottom is what you hope to collect as your smallest donations. Because the £5.00 is on the bottom, and makes up the majority of what you hope to get, this is called your Fundraising Base.

Now think about your middle. Can you:

• Collect £5 a week from some friends leading up to your marathon?
• Get larger sponsorships like £1.00/mile = £26.20 or even higher?
• Hold a bake sale, a raffle, or sell off old furniture or equipment?
• Ask your company if they will match your fundraising goals, contribute, or help promote you?
  
• Have a house party - where you make spaghetti and garlic bread (a la carbo loading) for all your friends for a suggested donation?
• Bag groceries or help out in local businesses for tips to your cause?

A mixture of these can mean in my world anywhere from £10 - 50 in extra donations (plus some change to boot). So draw:

Now that you've gotten your amounts down you can start to break the weeks leading up to your marathon with achievable goals. Here are mine:

• Hold a weekly baking raffle at £1/ticket. But ... I let people know that if they sponsor me for £20.00 online, I will give them a coupon to have cookies baked for them whenever they ask plus 20 chances to win more baked goods! (This has worked well for me.)
  
• My company lets me keep my collection tin out whenever I'm at work, plus they are letting me sell old chairs and desks we no longer use to directly fund the National Autistic Society. (See my largest donor - My awesome friends & colleagues)
  
• I had a few business associates and friends that have no problem in giving large donations of £50 - 100. Thankfully many of them have done endurance races, so they know what I'm going through!
  
• A week before my marathon I'm having a pasta party for £5/each. My desert is a much-loved brownie recipe and I'll have more baked goods to give away. Overall a cheap night out for most of my friends.

Through a weekly no-fuss event (raffle), asking and keeping my collection tin at hand, and a pre-marathon spaghetti party I feel I can reach my goal and not feel overwhelmed by everything else. I'm not focused on the £1,250.00 - but the £1 that are often £5 in raffle tickets, the occasional desk or chair sale, and those individuals who step up and give £20 because they love my brownies and cookies.

They often say that when you train you should break up your mileage and build to your goal. The same is true for fundraising. Be flexible, creative, and play to your strengths. Don't let a big number or big mileage get you down. Break it down and make it doable.

I totally was not expecting this.

I reached my goal.

I started less than a month ago and *poof*

I reached my goal.

Now, of course, the good fundraiser in me would say: "Well, then, Cristin, doesn't that mean you should RAISE your goal?"

And I think, "Well, yeah, but...."

But. (It's the greatest and most terrible word ever.)

There are others I know running equal challenges. People who, just like me, drag their sorry butts into stretchy material and hoof it to and from work and on odysseys around their towns. All for their chosen cause.

Not that I'm saying I could do with any more donations. Or argue that getting those donations help diagnose, support, and champion people who live with autism. Nor that those donations have already helped at LEAST 62 people. I could happily support another 62 more.

I'm just saying.

Regardless, and to make good on my little bit of jealousy over a kid who did something amazing I'm going to see if I can't interview a few people who are also running and raising. Maybe you'll like them and support them. Maybe you will support us both. Maybe, just maybe, it will only be about me.

I reached my goal.

Well, one of them.

Now I've got to make good on the other - finish the marathon.

Gotta run.

Holy cow! I'm going to run 100 miles ... this month!

So I thought to total up my mileage this morning and it came up at 85+ miles. It's stunning, really, to think of running THAT FAR in a very short period of time. When I started training for my very first half marathon I was thrilled for a 5 mile week. It's a bit different now.

When you make the choice to start running every mile is hard. My first ever training consisted of buying enough different types of running shoes to recycle the rubber into a play park's jogging track. I thought I broke my leg, twisted my calf, or cut off my foot a dozen times (and probably had every bit of my legs scanned at the doctors). I purchased and lost a half dozen of those Nike+ things, and I would stand at the copy machine doing leg balancing exercises because I was so terrified of not having core strength to even go through a 10K.

Now, if it isn't a 10K I have to think about wanting to run it. I cope with 5Ks. My hero, Jill, won't even think about it unless it starts at 6 miles. My 3 mile run-commute to work? Whatever! My only brief annoyance is if I venture out during bus pick-up/drop-off time I have to walk a lot in the city centre. (My life is more important than my marathon training.)

That's not to say that my legs still don't hurt (especially in cold weather - ugh!), that I sometimes don't have the mental will to do it, or that I've poorly planned for how long I'll be gone. I often tell people it's my first 3 miles that I have to spend convincing myself to run the extra 10 or 20 or whatever. Because after you've gone ahead and gone that far, you might as well keep going.

Not to mention that people keep giving me money. That guilts me into running for sure.

And so this month I'll manage 100 of those miles. Quite the accomplishment for me.

Yay me.

32 Reasons, 62 Impacts

Right now:

1. I have made a training plan. A real one.
I am using the "Oh ma GAWD I so totally like don't have time to train for a marathon" guide and the aptly named "Beginner's Marathon Training Plan" from the NAS. Special thanks to hero Jill for helping me to think this all the way through.

2. Found out my bestie and his wife will be, at worst, at the finish line of said marathon.
And they've never, ever, ever been to the most awesomest city ever. Which means that I need to follow said training plan combo thingy above so that I can take them around to everything cool and super in Rome.

3. Nearly hit my fundraising goal two weeks after starting it.
Thanks to GMC (not the car company) for teaching me all about grassroots fundraising and finding passionate and creative ways to reach out to people.

Which means that as of right now...

• I've funded 50 people in a gardening program for adults.
• Helped professionals assess 2 children with autism
• Given 10 people access to the Autism Helpline.

And that means the big #4:
I've gotten the support of over 32 individuals who believe in my cause and believe I can finish that marathon, whose training program is planned, who will have two people there for me who have never been to Rome, who have both supported the National Autistic Society

Which means that even though it will be me on that course getting a medal, we've impacted 62 lives no matter the outcome.

As they would say in England, "WELL DONE!"

Goal #1 = 6 miles in one go = DONE.

This is the easy part.

Man, how incredibly wacky nuts is it for me to type that?

This is the easy part.

When I first started running, 6+ years ago, I couldn't make it around a block without wanting to die. The security guard at my complex used to watch me as I slapped the side of the gate to count my turns. Sometimes I would get a thumbs up.

I remember coming back from 3 miles and my shins feeling like they were going to explode. Mornings of getting up and not being able to walk to the bathroom without the feeling that I just may not make it.

There was a picture, one I should've purchased, from my first 20K. I was part of a knot of injured and run/walkers - there were ... maybe... 5 of us total. The toned and tough group had passed us and I was there in my red running gear (still my favorite) in the heat of Houston sick and tired and scared out of my wits. When I saw the finish I worked my legs up a little and tried to be positive. Around me they were taking down the timing signs and picking up the cones. Just then I saw a photographer and tried, in vain, to smile and give a double thumbs up. What came back was a pained expression, nearly beat red with exhaustion, and thumbs pointing halfway down, as if at any moment I would drop.

I didn't, though. Somehow, I have managed to get better at it.

So much so I can write that 6 miles for running is, in fact, the easy part. So much so I can write that all the way up the half marathon point is, in fact, easy-peas-y (as they would say here). But I know that there is the darkness up ahead. The 17 miles, the 20 miles - who knows?

I guess I won't know until I do it.

Oh yes, and while you're here - Sponsor me.

Reason #1 to Sponsor Me.

Ahem.

I didn't sleep well last night. I dreamt of weights attached to my ankles as I stood under the Colosseum with people running past. I had visions of being late, overwhelmed. My mind was processing that - yes, Cristin - you have signed up to run 26.2 miles.

WHY ON EARTH DID YOU DECIDE TO REGISTER TO RUN 26.2 MILES?

The challenge.

Gawd, that's such an actor answer. "Why did you do the project, famous person?"

Oh, the challenge.

Wow, that's deep.

But then there is Mikey. There's a reason. National Autistic Society. When Mikey was diagnosed as autistic it seemed like the world was all strange. Here was my youngest brother who by all standards normal claimed abnormal. He didn't look it, and for a long time he just seemed a bit slow. But as time progressed so came the fixations and speech issues and desire to do as he felt regardless of society.

And from that grew the variations, or the "spectrum." The sudden understanding that autism isn't just one thing. After awhile, you sort of envy cancer. Cancer can kill you, and there is a series of treatments which almost everyone can comprehend. Sometimes you live, sometimes you die. It all depends on type and severity. But with autism, well, there is such a broad level. They don't know what causes it for sure. They don't know if there is a cure. But what they do know is that these people, and all their levels, need patience, understanding, and support.

So NAS exists for that reason. And not just for Mikey. It exists for family like me. So I can explain the condition to others and hope people not only understand but appreciate it.

*Cough*

Eating shortbread, signing up for marathons...

So, I did it.

I'm running this: Rome Marathon 2010.

I'm doing it for this: NAS.

Which makes me this: crazy.

I have 90 days from today to get ready. I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever run a marathon before. Ever.

Ever, ever.

But, I've committed. I'm doing this.

Oh.

Ma.

Gawd.